hello i am soniclovenoize. because i have too much time on my hands, i waste it by reconstructing famous unreleased albums. here are some of them. enjoy.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The Who - Lifehouse (upgrade)

The Who – Lifehouse

(soniclovenoize reconstruction)

September 2016 UPGRADE

Side A:

1.Teenage Wasteland

2.Time Is Passing

3.Love Ain’t For
Keeping

4.Going Mobile

5.Baby Don’t You Do
it

Side B:

6.Baba O’Riley

7.Mary

8.I Don’t Even Know
Myself

9.Greyhound Girl

10.Bargain

Side C:

11.Naked Eye

12.Behind Blue Eyes

13.Too Much of
Anything

14.Let’s See Action

15.Getting In Tune

Side D:

16.Pure and Easy

17.Won’t Get Fooled
Again

18.This Song Is Over

This is a long-overdue upgrade to one of the very first
reconstructions on my blog: the doomed rock opera Lifehouse by The Who, the
next in a series of alternate Who albums.Originally planned as a double concept album and the soundtrack to its
accompanying film, Lifehouse was too technically complex and conceptually
baffling to all except Pete Townshend.After a nervous breakdown while making the album and the lack of support
from manager and producer Kit Lambert, Lifehouse was scrapped and paired down to the
single LP Who’s Next, which became one of The Who’s crown achievements,
critically and commercially.This
reconstruction attempts to pull the best sources of all tracks associated with
the Lifehouse project recorded by The Who and assemble them not only in a
pleasing and cohesive track order, but to follow the storyline of the film.

The upgrades to this September 2016 edition are:

Revised track order that follows the Lifehouse storyline more logically, as well as a more sonically-pleasing flow.

“Relay” and “Join Together” are dropped from the tracklist, as there is no evidence they were originally meant to be in the Lifehouse project.

“Baby Don’t You Do It” and “Naked Eye” are added to the tracklist as there is evidence they were originally considered for the Lifehouse project in some fashion.

The final Olympic takes of “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Pure and Easy” are used instead of the rougher Record Plant takes.

A unique stereo mix of “Time is Passing” is featured, using the left channel of the track from Odds and Sods synced with the right channel from the Exciting The Who bootleg.

Most sources are taken from the Japanese 2010 and 2011 SHM CD remasters of Who’s Next and Odds and Sods respectively, the most pristine and dynamic masters available of both releases.

“Let’s See Action” is sourced from the new The Who Hits 50, which features the full single version.

Following the critically and commercially successful 1969
rock opera Tommy was no easy task for The Who.At
first the beginnings were modest with a self-produced EP recorded in May 1970 at Pete Townshend’s garage studio (dubbed Eel Pie)—possibly to mimic the stripped and
fantastic Live at Leeds, released that month.Featuring recent songs written while touring Tommy, The Who tracked
“Postcard”, “Now I’m A Farmer”, “Water”, “Naked Eye” and “I Don’t Even Know
Myself”.This EP never saw the light of
day for various reasons, including questions of marketability and inflated song
length. It's more likely that
Townshend had instead concocted an epic idea worthy enough to follow-up
Tommy—another rock opera that not only functioned as a soundtrack to a
companion film, but would include an audience-participated live performance
with the band itself.That September, Townshend
began recording elaborate demos for much of the album, tracking all the
instruments himself.Unlike Tommy, the
material for this project—now called Lifehouse—would consist of approximately
20 stand-alone songs, without the need for musical interludes to propel the
storyline; each song would be self-sufficient.

The original storyline itself was simple, albeit
Bradbury-esque.The setting was in the
not-too-distant future, in an ecologically-destroyed United Kingdom.Most people live in the major cities and are
electronically connected via special suits to The Grid, a Matrix-like virtual
reality computer program that feeds, entertains and pacifies the populace,
which is controlled by a villainous character named Jumbo.Since it is not approved by The Grid, music
is outlawed completely; despite this, a hacker musician named Bobby who lives outside the city amongst
the hippy-gypsy farmer communes broadcasts a signal of classic
rock (called Trad) into The Grid. Some
rebellious few congregate to the secret Lifehouse to experience the music Bobby
broadcasts, which are somehow tailor-made for each individual person, the music
representing their own life experience (and performed by, who else, but The Who!).

The story begins with Ray and Sally, husband and wife turnip
farmers, also living in a traveling commune outside of the city.Their teenage daughter Mary intercepts the
Lifehouse broadcasts and runs away from her family to seek the source of the pirate
signal.While Ray goes after her, Sally
finds Bobby attempting to find The One Note, a musical note that represents all
people and unites the universe.After
falling in love, the pair travel to London to find and play The One Note at The
Lifehouse. By the end of the double album, Ray catches up to the couple, Jumbo’s troops storm the rock festival
at The Lifehouse just as Bobby plays The One Note, and we find the rebel youth
have simply vanished, transcended to another plane, along with any civilians
attached to The Grid who had witnessed the event.

The story seems to make sense to us, in the internet
age.But the rest of the band members
failed to understand Townshend’s concept (specifically Roger Daltrey’s
inability to conceptualize wireless communication), and likewise Towshend had
difficulty articulating it.To make matters more confusing, Townshend intended not only live performances of The Who to be
intercut within the narrative in the film, but the performances themselves were
to be metaphysical music that would be “tuned” to each individual audience member.The final touch was that The Who, by the end
of the performance, would become holograms.These performances at The Young Vic Theatre beginning in January 1971
and carrying on sporadically until the spring seemed to be unpromoted and open
to the general public—anyone curious enough to wander into the Young Vic and
discover The Who playing new material!Unfortunately,
The Who were a band who wanted to make metaphysical music that represented the
souls of the individual audience members, who themselves casually arrived just
wanting to hear the bands’ hits.The
Young Vic performances were a failed experiment and in the end simply amounted to public
rehearsals of the new Lifehouse material.With Townshend disheartened that not only the audience “didn’t get it”
but his band as well, The Who relocated to New York to record the new songs
properly in the studio, giving Lifehouse one final chance.

Initial album tracking began at the Record Plant in March
1971, produced by manager Kit Lambert as usual and featuring legendary keyboardist
Al Kooper and guitarist Leslie West of Mountain.At least six core Lifehouse songs were all
worked on to completion or near to it: “Baby Don’t You Do It” (allegedly a
studio warm-up), “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Love Ain’t For Keeping”, “Behind
Blue Eyes”, “Pure and Easy” and “Getting in Tune”.By this time the band’s relationship with
Lambert had broken down completely.Lambert was producer only in name, as he was preoccupied with a heroin
addiction and was unable to even mix the session!Townshend (himself by this point a chronic
alcoholic) also had problems finding a common-ground with Lambert in regards to
the Lifehouse narrative; Kit had helped Townshend flesh out the concept of
Tommy two years before, but they were unable to agree upon a script for the
Lifehouse film.The situation reached
its boiling point when Townsend overheard Lambert blasting him at their hotel
room, including his recommendation that the band should abandon the
project.Townshend in effect spiraled
into a nervous breakdown, later claiming to have attempted to jump out of the
hotel window.That was the deathblow to
Lifehouse.

Still needing to finish an album—be it Lifehouse or
otherwise—producer Glyn Johns was brought in to mix the Record Plant sessions
and to see if it was salvageable.Johns thought
the recordings were up to par but recommended restarting the project with him at
the helm, as he could better capture the essence of The Who to tape.Recording began at Mick Jagger’s mansion
Stargroves in April, testing the waters with “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.Impressed with the results, Johns and the
band relocated to Olympic Studios in May to overdub it and to record at least
another 15 songs.At this point in time,
Johns urged an already discouraged Townshend to shelve the Lifehouse concept indefinitely
and release the best material as a singular, non-conceptual album.The result was Who’s Next, regarded as not
only one of The Who’s greatest albums, but one of the greatest in rock
history.

While Johns apparently made the correct call in whittling
down Lifehouse to Who’s Next, Townshend never really gave up on the
project.He continued working on it,
adding new songs to the project that regardless found their way onto other Who singles
and albums (“Join Together” and “Relay” in 1972, “Slip Kid” in 1976, “Who Are
You” in 1977, etc).After a failed attempt to
write a new Lifehouse screenplay in 1980, the themes and basic plot outline
were recycled by Townshend for his 1993 solo album Psychoderelict.Townshend
eventually commissioned a Lifehouse radio play for the BBC in 1999 and released
a multi-disc boxset of his original 1970 Lifehouse demos, the radio play and
its soundtrack in 2000 as The Lifehouse Chronicles.To top it off, Townshend performed a series
of concerts of the Lifehouse material later that year, released as Pete Townshend Live: Sadler Wells 2000.

While Townshend clearly gave his final word on the project,
is it possible to rebuild the original Lifehouse that The Who attempted to
raise in 1971?An exact tracklist was
never published and Townshend has revealed only the basic plotline, lacking any
specifics or subplot descriptions.And while The Lifehouse
Chronicles gives an excellent overview of the material, presented in a cohesive
narrative framework, it is very much retro-active, including later 70s
compositions not originally included in the 1971 project and based upon the
largely rewritten and convoluted 1999 BBC radio play.For my reconstruction we will attempt to only
use the songs originally intended to be a part of the 1971 project, using
exclusively The Who recordings with gaps filled-in by Townshend’s 1970 solo
demos.Our tracklist will follow what
we know of the original storyline, as reflected in the song lyrics, with
further insight from the performance order of Townshend’s Live: Sadler’s Wells
2000.Structurally, the first disc of
will be set in the Scottish countryside and follow Mary’s journey to find Bobby,
and Ray’s journey to find Mary.The
second disc will be set in The Grid of London and portray Bobby’s search for
The One Note and his final confrontation with Jumbo’s army.No live material is included, as I believe
that intent was scrapped after the failure of The Young Vic experiments.

Side A opens with “Baba M1” representing The One Note as an
introduction, crossfaded into “Teenage Wasteland”, both Townshend’s demos taken
from Lifehouse Chronicles.Since there
is an overlap between this and “Baba O’Riley”, the song is faded out before the
redundant passages.Here Ray introduces
the listener to his world: living on the land in a caravan outside of The
Grid.Next, we introduce Bobby who is performing
music in his own caravan with “Time Is Passing”.Here a unique stereo mix of the song is
created by syncing the left channel from Odds and Sods with the right channel
from the bootleg Exciting The Who.“Love
Ain’t For Keeping” follows (using the Olympic take from Who’s Next with the
extended Record Plant jam from Odds and Sods tagged onto the end), character
development for Ray who sings this love song for his wife Sally.The couple and their teenage daughter Mary
travel the countryside in “Going Mobile” from Who’s Next, until Mary hears
Bobby’s pirate broadcast of “Baby Don’t You Do It” from the Who’s Next 2010
remaster and decides to leave her parents in search of whomever is sending these
magical signals.Ray chases after her,
which his perceived betrayal is also reflected in the song’s lyrics.

Side B opens with Bobby experimenting with The One Note in
“Baba O’Riley” from Who’s Next.Mary finds
him and joins his caravan, on its way to London to host a rock concert at The
Lifehouse, intending to free the populous from The Grid.Bobby falls in love with Mary as heard in
Townshend’s demo of “Mary” from Lifehouse Chronicles, but Mary is reluctant as
heard in the Olympic version of “I Don’t Even Know Myself” from Odds and Sods.Bobby tries to win Mary over in Townshend’s
demo of “Greyhound Girl” from Lifehouse Chronicles, and disc one concludes with
Ray vowing to retrieve his daughter no matter the cost—even venturing into the
city to find her—in “Bargain” from Who’s Next.

Side C takes place in the future city of London, as we see
the populace hooked up into The Grid, living a virtual reality life, an idyllic
illusion meant to control them.Here we
use “Naked Eye” to create this setting and describe The Grid, using the Eel Pie recording from Odds and Sods; although this recording predates
Lifehouse and hails from the scrapped 1970 EP, there is documentation that a
version of “Naked Eye” was actually recorded during the 1971 Olympic sessions,
thus indicating Townshend’s intent to use the song in Lifehouse.Following, we are introduced to Jumbo, the
controller of The Grid, who attempts to convince the listener he’s just
misunderstood in “Behind Blue Eyes” from Who’s Next.As Bobby and Mary infiltrate the city, they
attempt to show people that their Grid lives are an illusion in the original
mix of “Too Much of Anything” from Odds and Sods.Both Bobby, Mary and Ray all arrive at The
Lifehouse together and prepare for the rock concert in “Let’s See Action” from
The Who Hits 50 and the show begins in “Getting in Tune” from Who’s Next, as
Bobby hacks into the Grid and broadcasts The Lifehouse concert live to all
linked into The Grid.

Side D opens with Bobby explaining what The One Note is and
Mary urging him to use it to free everyone from Grid in the Olympic version of
“Pure and Easy” from Odds and Sods.Jumbo’s army storms the Lifehouse during “Won’t Get Fooled Again” from
Who’s Next just as Bobby plays The One Note.
Right as the soldiers close in, all the protagonists and concert-goers
vanish from their reality—as well as all the people on The Grid watching the show
from their homes.The closing credits
presumably play over “This Song Is Over” from Who’s Next. The final touch being cover art created long ago by I Design Album Covers, we have one of the seminal Albums That Never Were, now better than ever.

It's funny but this series has made me realize that The Who always made the right choices regarding what kind of album they chose to release:My Generation trumps over Introducing with its original rockers and by having, of course, My Generation in it. A Quick One is a tad better than the rather mediocre Jigsaw Puzzle, thanks to the redeeming brilliance of the titular medley. Who's Lily is quite good, but the concept of Sell Out really elevates the whole album to something extraordinary. And Lifehouse, while full of great songs, is still one big mess of a concept album that one cannot comprehend without an essay alongside with it, and its songs simply shine more brightly in a non-story, single LP. I still appreciate the hard work you've done. Cannot wait for Rock Is Dead!

Thank you very much for the alternate upgrade! I'm sure you have a few other Who releases for the future... hopefully. Really looking forward to your take on Neil Young's "Homegrown". One of the best music blogs around! Keep 'em comin'!

Thanks for sharing. I've made variations of this for myself over the years, the weak spots always being the mono Time is Passing (so amazing to hear your stereo remaster!) and the solo-only Mary and Greyhound Girl (too bad you couldn't dummy up some fake Who versions... maybe next time around...). And I prefer your hybrid Love Ain't For Keeping to either original (frankly not one of my favorite Who songs, but given new life here).

At some point, having been listening to Who's Next for countless years, I just have a hard time enjoying a lot of those songs these days. So last year I took a different approach to Lifehouse, making an imaginary album (titled Join Together) composed of all the early 70s non-album tracks OTHER than those on Who's Next, and I still listen to that one all the time. Setlist is:

Pure & Easy. Naked Eye. Postcard. Too Much of Anything. Relay. I Don't Even Know Myself. Put The Money Down. Let's See Action. Join Together. Now I'm A Farmer. Water. When I Was A Boy. Love Ain't For Keeping (electric). Waspman. Baby Don't You Do It. Long Live Rock.

I've had that sync of the two channels of Time Is Passing for a few years now, but only in MP3 form. Great to have an upgrade. Thanks! There's an early version of Pure & Easy I have somewhere that trumps both the Odds & Sods and Who's Next bonus track versions. I'd definitely substitute (pun intended) this version.And personally I wouldn't include both Teenage Wasteland and Baba O'Riley. Nor do I feel inclined to include Baby Don't You Do It. So I think my version would keep Join Together and Relay. Both of these songs fit thematically.

Are you sure that The Who re-recorded Naked Eye at Olympic? I always presumed that the documentation concerned the 1970 version being dusted off for possible inclusion, and that there was no actual remake.

I've built and rebuilt this album numerous times. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd come up with the perfect version, only to rethink it again. There seems to be a question as to whether the "Greyhound Girl" demo was recorded in '71 or '72. I finally decided to do an only Who version (no Mary or Greyhound Girl), and used the setlist at the Young Vic (minus the Tommy songs, My Generation. Road Runner and Bony Maronie) as a basis for the Lifehouse tracklist.

Would you consider creating a fourth Jimi Hendrix Experience album, consisting of the late '68 - early '69 sessions, before the departure of Noel Redding? I did a version of it myself, called "The End of The Beginning", which consisted of the following:Side A1. (Here He Comes) The Lover Man2. Somewhere3. It's Too Bad4. My FriendSide B1. Look Over Yonder2. Hear My Train A-Comin'3. Tax Free4. Calling All The Devil's Children

Side note - would you ever do a version of Badfinger's unreleased 1975 album "Head First"? An out-of-order and not the best sounding version was released in 2000, and I think you could do a lot better.

As always, wonderful work sonic! This is my definitive Lifehouse mix from now on. :)

If anyone wants to have a look, iv'e created a new blog inspired by sonic's work but revisiting the complete 70s discography by The Beach Boys: including full alternate liner notes, alternate tracklist and cover art. Check it out!

Like the Prince post, but not the Stampede one, the download is quite rightly blocked by Kaspersky as you get one of those your computer is at risk/broken phish attacks if attempt to download without it. UK fan of your great site, so may be a UK specific.

Thank you for this. As always, the reconstruction is much appreciated, and I think this improves on the 2012 version.

Just looking for clarification/confirmation: the 2012 version contained the track "Put The Money Down", but it has been omitted this time around and was not mentioned in the list of upgrades. Is it safe to assume that it was omitted for the same reason that "Join Together" and "Relay" were omitted this time around?

Just curious. Love what you've been doing here - keep up the great work!

A final T. Rex album would be a good project. Enough songs were recorded in '77. There have been a couple of attempts to compile them ("Final Cuts" and "Billy Super Duper") but both were marred with the inclusion of earlier recorded outtakes. Tracks most likely should include Shy Boy, Love Drunk, 21st Century Stance, Hot George, Foxy Boy, Mellow Love, 20th Century Baby. There may be a few more, but I'm finding a good chronological order of Marc Bolan's recording sessions to be near impossible.

Hi, SLN! I have been posting to you my own projects. Some days ago I wrote about finding older music sounding strange on newer systems and such... Well, it was a long time ago I used vinyl and now I am usind CDs. I opened up one of your files in Sound Forge and saw how dynamic it was. CDs might be generally better than vinyls, but with this loudness war the dynamic is way much better on CD. I actually just found this out. I have noticed that all new remastered 60s music is loud as hell on CDs.My projects are not from vinyl rips, but from CDs. I really understand now why CDs don't have the same dynamic.

It isn't the fault of the medium, because CD could inherently have MORE of a dynamic range than vinyl as well as no worry about time constraints, bass levels and sibilant issues. In theory, CDs should produce a better--or at least more accurate to what the artist heard in the studio--recording.

But as you've noticed, since there's a much higher ceiling to make an album louder on CD, mastering engineers pushed that envelope and have made masters more compressed and loud as possible, decreasing the dynamic range. I don't buy into the "This is so loud, it's unlistenable!" mentality, but for many albums it's a real problem. One of my only complaints about the new Radiohead album, for example, is that it is REALLY loud, much louder than the music itself implies that it should be.

But then again, was it an artistic choice? Did they intentionally do that? Maybe. For example, the band Oasis used it as a creative tool, and even felt it covered up some of the band members' sloppy performances. Let's also remember that often in rock music, the album is attempting to replicate the band playing live. If you've ever been to a show, it is LOUD. Wouldn't that make sense that the album is overcompressed and LOUD as well? I can see that side of the argument.

Luckily, it's a mixed bag. There are some digital sources that do have pretty great dynamic range-- Specifically all the Who reconstructions, all those Japanese SHM remasters sound great, often better than vinyl imo. For Jigsaw Puzzle I A/Bed five different pressings of A Quick One--including two different vinyl rips by respected rippers--and the best was that SHM CD. Modern mastering technology has advanced so much, that they can now capture a more accurate sound image of the music from the mastertapes than they could even ten years ago. So assuming the master isn't totally brickwalled, modern CD remasters SHOULD (in theory) sound better than the original vinyl releases. I try to find them and use them on this blog, if available. Thanks for listening!

Not being a Radiohead head, could you put some context of what these recordings represent? I love the whole idea of creating albums in this alternate universe. Has anyone read Lewis Shiner's "Glimpses" which is about that very thing.

I love your work, including your original Lifehouse construction. But I'm sorry, there's no way Pete would've put a Marvin Gaye cover (Baby Don't You Do It) on his opera. Okay, so he snuck a Sonny Boy Williamson cut onto Tommy...but even the title (Eyesight to the Blind) fits that concept.That aside...here's an easy potential project..The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo with Gram Parsons' vocals restored.Keep up the great work

The GP Sweetheart album is easily done by getting the reissue cd, and sequencing the songs in the correct order. All the original GP vocal tracks are on there. You can replace the McGuinn vocals with those, and add a bonus track or 2 if you wish. I added Pretty Polly after 100 Years From Now ( I used the alternate take of that as well ), and deleted Life In Prison, and replaced it with All I Have Is Memories. Works a lot better than the released lp : closer to the original concept.

If you ever want to do a quick project, the original double-album version of "McCartney II" would be an easy one. All of the material was released on the Archive Collection reissue and the sequence from the original test pressing is preserved on a bootleg called "The Lost McCartney Album".

Well, it's a notoriously hard song to sync up... the two channels flub way out of sync with each other (yay for tape machines running tiny bits faster and slower!). Your attempt is way better than anything I could come up with (even after hours of tiny tweaks in Audacity)...

Yes, indeed. The loudness isn't the problem, in it self, it's the loss of the peaks. So that it sounds undynamic. Yes yes.I mainly listen to the japanese remasters of The Beach BoysOften modern CD remasters sounds better than newly released albums, because they try to stay true to real deal. The CDs today do not sound like the finished work. The vinyls sounds more like it does in the studio, maybe not in quality, but in dynamic.Sometimes I ripp My CDs and do a clipped peak restoration, turning down the volume 1,5 db, on each track. It can improve some albums, I did try it on A Moon Shaped Pool. The Radiohead album The King of Limbs really suffers on CD. I don't even listen on the CD version. I ripped it from vinyl and gently turned up the volume a bit. It's a different album on vinyl, I like it a lot.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9b0udng74euucvr - tkol

Some albums really suffers out there.On all old music albums I have uploaded to you, the dynamic is fine and there is no clipping, but on these Radiohead songs the sound was clipping all over. I have been revisiting them and am working on them. The main point in making them is because I did not enjoy the track order, and now not the quality, on the collectors editions. I went looking at Radioheads own tracklists on their EPs.

Thanks for your work. You did give my father joy with this album, before he died last week. Thank you.

Here's one I've been working on.. a 1991 album by alternative band Hüsker Dü if they hadn't broken up in 1987 - from the albums that songwriters Grant Hart & Bob Mould put out around that time. I think it stands up well next to what R.E.M & Nirvana released in the early 1990s. https://open.spotify.com/user/1231007472/playlist/5ZXv0s387eJoHzZQQe40aa

Folks, I've created a version of what would happen if Paul McCartney & Wings hadn't broken up, using the tracks they rehearsed in oct.80, Linda's "Love's Full Glory" and some tunes from Denny's "Japanese Tears", and I liked the results a lot:

Ever think of trying to make a version of Jeff Buckley's My Sweetheart the Drunk that never was? It'd be interesting to hear what songs you'd include out of his posthumous release of the work he'd gotten done.

Hello again Sonic; I love your version of this. I have the material that Pete offered with the radio show and everything and it is kind of a jumble. This sounds like a valid album and like all of your releases; sounds like a regular album on earbuds!! Thanks Again!

For the two people who don't know, Richie Unterberger wrote a book about, amongst other albums, Lifehouse:http://www.richieunterberger.com/Who70s.htmlI read other books by Richie and if they are anything to go by, the book on The Who will not disappoint.

What a great share, thank you!! HOWEVER, after successfully d/l the first, I have found it impossible to d/l the 2nd & 3rd. I just get adware and efforts to get me to d/l Java and/or other various programs I do not want. Is there any chance you can steer me how to get them? I am at wmgray8atgmaildotcom – Thank you very much